Lebedinsky, Vyacheslav Vasilievich

(b. St. Petersburg, Russia [now Leningrad, U.S.S.R.], 1 September 1888; d. Moscow, U.S.S.R., 12 December 1956)

Chemistry.

A student of Chugaev, Lebedinsky graduated in 1913 from St. Petersburg University and was retained by Chugaev in the department of inorganic chemistry to prepare for a teaching career. From 1920 to 1935 he was a professor at Petrograd (later Leningrad) University, and from 1935 to 1952 at the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology and at the Moscow Institute of Non-Ferrous Metals and Gold. Lebedinsky’s scientific work was done in the Platinum Section of the Commission for the Study of Productive Forces (from 1916), at the Institute for the Study of Platinum and Precious Metals (1918-1934) in Leningrad, and at the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Lebedinsky’s basic works were related to the study of the chemistry of complex compounds, chiefly rhodium and iridium. His studies of the complex compounds of rhodium won worldwide recognition. From the six possible forms of the ammonium derivative of trivalent rhodium he synthesized compounds corresponding to the four forms Me₂[RhX₅NH₃], Me[RhX₄(NH₃)₂,[RhX₃(NH₃)₂],and [RhX₃(NH₃)₃]X, where X is and anion. His research on the ammonium compounds of rhodium and iridium led Lebedinsky to draw the important conclusion that the compounds containing and odd number of ammonia molecules in the inner sphere are the more stable and more easily synthesized; whereas, in the case of pyridine compounds, those containing and even number of molecules of ammonia are more easily synthesized. Study of the chemical compounds of rhodium enabled Lebedinsky to show that they possess a regularity of transinfluence.

Lebedinsky was one of the first to undertake work on the synthesis of complex compounds of rhenium and obtained its compound with ethylenediamine, with rhenium in the form of a cation.

Lebedinsky developed a new industrial method for obtaining pure rhodium and took part in the work of the refining commission. He carried out valuable investigations on processing wastes from refineries to extract precious metals, separating precious metals from weak solutions and salts, and developing the technology of extracting precious metals from coppernickel sludge. In 1946 Lebedinsky was elected a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Lebedinsky’s writings include “Novye kompleksnye soedinenia rodia” (“New Complex Compounds of Rhodium”), in Zhurnal Russkago fizikokhimicheskogo obshchestva,48 (1916), 1955, written with L. A. Chugaev ; “Novy ryad ammiachnykh soedineny rodia” (“A New Series of Ammonia Compounds of Rhodium”), in Izvestiya Instituta po izucheniyu platiny i drugikh blagorodnykh metallov, no. 2 (1933); and “O nekotorykh novykh kompleksnykh soedineniakh renia” (“On Certain New Complex Compounds of Rhenium”), in Zhurnal obshchei khimii,13 (1943), 253, written with B. N. Ivanov-Emin.

II. Secondary Literature. See O. E. Zvyagintsev, “Vyacheslav Vasilievich Lebedinsky,” in Zhurnal neorganicheskoi khimii,2 (1957), 1713.

D. N. Trifonov